Dr. Krisztina Ilko, a medieval historian at Cambridge University’s Queens’ College, has unveiled a forgotten chapter of eco-miracles in a new study, revealing how the Augustinian order was revered for healing land, multiplying crops, and restoring fertility—a history echoed by the first Augustinian pope’s new Vatican farm. Her decade of research challenges the urban-centric view of the Church and Renaissance.
Forget, for a moment, the classic image of medieval saints performing dramatic wonders like weeping statues or bearing stigmata. What if the most sought-after miracles were far more… agricultural? Imagine a saint who could command a barren apple tree to fruit, multiply a patch of cabbages, or heal a farmer’s ox with a broken leg. According to groundbreaking new research, these “green-fingered” wonders were the specialty of the Order of the Hermits of St Augustine, a fact largely erased from history until now.
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This verdant vision of sanctity comes from Dr. Krisztina Ilko, a medieval historian from Cambridge University’s Queens’ College. In her major new study, The Sons of St Augustine, published by Oxford University Press, she argues that the Augustinians built their power and legitimacy not in grand city cathedrals, but in the harsh, rural wilderness, reported the University of Cambridge. “The Augustinians get very little credit for miraculously making land fertile, healing livestock and bringing fruit trees back to life,” says Dr. Ilko.
Her research, spanning two dozen archives and over sixty remote Augustinian sites, uncovers a trove of rural miracles that scholars had previously overlooked. One manuscript from the 1320s, housed in Florence’s Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, tells of friar Giovanni of Florence healing the broken leg of a vital ox. Another describes Jacopo of Rosia commanding a stubborn apple tree to produce fruit annually and miraculously multiplying cabbages. These were not mere parables but interventions “of life and death” for medieval communities.
Perhaps the most striking figure is the dragon-slaying hermit Guglielmo of Malavalle. While Saint George fought his beast with a lance, Guglielmo used a humble wooden staff shaped like a pitchfork. Dr. Ilko’s analysis reveals the deeper meaning: in medieval thought, dragons symbolized the toxic, swampy miasmas that blighted the countryside. By defeating the dragon in Tuscany’s “bad valley,” Guglielmo was credited with purifying the putrid air and restoring the land to “peak fertility.” “Guglielmo was a pitchfork-wielding dragon slayer and divine gardener all at once,” Dr. Ilko explains.
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Why did these rural wonders fade from memory? Dr. Ilko believes the historical spotlight has long favored the rapid urban renewal driven by orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans in cities like Florence and Rome. “With so much focus on Italian cities, we’ve lost sight of how important the countryside was to the Church and to the Renaissance,” she states. This focus led to the Augustinians’ more practical, ecological miracles being deemed less glamorous than mystical visions.
Furthermore, Dr. Ilko posits that this deep connection to nature was a crucial survival strategy. Founded in 1256, the Augustinians faced a 25-year period of uncertainty after 1274 when the Church questioned their legitimacy. Lacking a single charismatic founder, they crafted an origin story tied to St. Augustine while simultaneously drawing authority from their wild power bases—forests, mountains, and the sea. “Direct contact with nature gave the friars legitimacy, special spiritual powers and access to valuable natural resources,” Ilko argues.
Even when they moved into cities, they chose liminal spaces bordering the countryside. In Rome, they established Santa Maria del Popolo at a city gate framed by gardens, a site once considered too remote and demon-haunted by the Franciscans. By taming these wild frontiers, they physically and symbolically demonstrated their sanctifying power over nature.
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Dr. Ilko’s work arrives at a poignant moment, as Pope Leo XIV, the first ever Augustinian pope, recently inaugurated an eco-friendly farm at the Vatican. She sees this as a modern echo of her order’s ancient, forgotten ethos. “In a more eco-conscious world, the Augustinians deserve much more attention,” she says, advocating for better care and access to the often-neglected ruins of Augustinian hermitages. Her research not only re-writes a chapter of religious history but recovers a surprisingly sustainable and earthy spirituality for the modern age.
